Recipe for flan

I blog about flan so often, I figured it’s about time that I actually post the recipe!  My recipe is from this cookbook that I bought Jeff a couple of years ago.  Oh look at that beautiful flan on the cover…I couldn’t not buy it after I saw the cover. Caramel

• 1 cup of sugar
• 1/3 cup water
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon lemon juice

1. Combine everything in a light-colored pan and heat over the stove on medium-high heat.  This process will take about 8 minutes – the mixture will start to turn colors and you will wonder if it’s done yet, even though the color is not quite golden.  It’s not!  You’ll know when the color is right.
2. Keep swirling the pan until you get that color change.  Once it turns that honey-caramel color, remove the pan from heat and distribute caramel into ramekins.  The book says to keep it heated for another 4-5 minutes after the color change but I did that and it started burning after a minute so I would recommend removing it almost immediately.

Custard

• 1 1/2 cups milk (The recipe stipulates whole, I’m a rebel so I use 1%.)
• 1 1/2 cups light cream
• 3 large eggs plus 2 large yolks
• 1/3 cup sugar (The recipe stipulates 2/3 cup sugar…again, I’m a rebel so I cut it in half.  I feel like1/3 cup is plenty sweet, especially with the caramel but you can adjust this to your preference.)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• Pinch salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Heat milk and cream over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until steam appears.  You don’t have to heat it until it’s boiling.  Once it’s finished, remove from heat.
3. Whisk the eggs, yolk, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl until just combined.
4. Gently whisk the warm milk into the eggs.
5. Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve – this part is particularly important to me and I actually strain it a few times, just to make sure the mixture is smooth and clump free.
6. Bring 2 quarters of water to a boil.  Fold a dish towel to fit the bottom of a large baking dish or roasting pan and position it in the pan.
7. Divide custard mixture among the ramekins and place them on the towel in the pan.
8. Fill the pan with boiling water to reach halfway up the sides of the ramekins; cover the entire pan loosely with aluminum foil so steam can escape.
9. Bake until a paring knife inserted halfway comes out clean.  The book says it’s about 35-40 minutes but I have found that it’s closer to 45 minutes.  It might just be my oven though.

I have the big ramekins so this recipe fills up 8 big ones about half way.  Here they are in the midst of being filled:

It looks like M is going to be contributing a pumpkin pie to our Thanksgiving feast so the flan will have some company.  I can’t wait!  Hope you all have a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving with your loved ones.

In-N-Out cheese fries

I haven’t always been a big fan of In-N-Out – the burgers are great and I love the shakes but and I hate their fries.  They really don’t compare to McDonald’s fries – must be all the preservatives they’re leaving out that makes them taste so blah.

On my last outing to In-N-Out, I saw someone with an order of cheese fries and have been intrigued by them ever since.  I finally had a chance to try them yesterday:

I was so disappointed!  They were $2 more than the regular fries but no bigger – just a regular portion of fries with 2 slices of cheese melted on top, so only the top layer was cheesy.  No wonder no one ever gets the cheese fries here!  I officially give up on the fries here.

Updated (and hopefully finalized!) Thanksgiving menu

I’m indecisive and I keep changing my mind but I think this is pretty close to final! I am excited because the menu sounds delish but most importantly, doable.   Not only is it important that the recipes aren’t too complex, but we also need to keep in mind that we only have one oven (and not a particularly good one) so we can’t have 8 dishes in a row that need to be baked for long periods of times at different temperatures.  Hopefully we can pull this off!

Appetizers:

• Trader Joe’s fondue brie with bread and crackers
• Pesto, brie, and tomato bruschetta

Main courses:

• Roast chicken
• Sausage stuffed mushrooms

Sides:

• Mashed potatoes
• Carrots with green beans
• Creamed corn

Dessert:

• Flan

This is for six people so I think it should be more than enough food.  I’m greedy so I would LOVE to add an extra dessert in there but I don’t see that happening.  Maybe I’ll get ambitious and bust out some puff pastry goodness like this.

Wow, I was a lot more domestic before grad school.  I miss having the time and energy to whip this stuff up!

Recipes for Thanksgiving

I know it’s strange (and maybe even a bit crazy?) that I’m not planning on cooking the traditional Thanksgiving foods like turkey, gravy, cranberry,yams, stuffing, and pumpkin pie.  Growing up, my family was too Asian to celebrate Thanksgiving the American way so my tastebuds and I don’t have any particular attachment or cravings for these traditional foods.  However, I still love Thanksgiving because it’s an excuse to get good company and good food together.  Normally, my friends and I do it potluck style but since it’s all us this year, I’m trying to expand outside of my usual fail-safe dishes to bring some new and fun things to throw to the table.  Luckily, they aren’t picky eaters so no one is mourning the absence of the turkey.

Jeff thought that the chicken I bought looked a bit small so I decided to look up a few more recipes to add to our feast, just to make sure there’s enough food.  As a disclaimer, most of the recipes I like are super duper easy.  Hey, I wasn’t kidding when I said I’m no Martha Stewart.   Here are a few I stumbled across that are making my stomach growl as we speak:

Parmesan Puff Pastry

Brie, Pesto, & Tomato Bruschetta

Stuffed mushrooms

(I was actually hoping for a recipe with sausage stuffing to add another meat dish to our meal.  If anyone has any good ones, please do share!)

Clearly, I’m a big fan of appetizers and finger foods.  I’m the type that loads up on the starters and then gets full before the entree comes!  Strangely enough, I always have enough room for dessert.

Do you always do a traditional Thanksgiving feast or do you mix it up with some less traditional dishes?

Heidi Klum

Can you believe that even though Heidi Klum looked this fantabulous 6 weeks after giving birth, she claimed that she still had 20 pounds to lose at the time this picture was taken?  I hate how she’s being celebrated for being able to embrace her post-pregnancy body and put her “curvy, fat” self out there on the runway when she looks freaking amazing.  Not a single inch of her looks fat and the only parts that look curvier than usual are her boobs, which isn’t exactly a bad thing.  I feel like this picture is her way of showing off – “look how gorgeous I am a mere 6 weeks after giving birth – and this is what I call fat.  You wish you had my body!”  I don’t usually get all riled up about seeing skinny, anorexic supermodels because at least we accept that they are at a disgustingly unhealthy weight but to see people praising Heidi for being so accepting of her “fat” post-pregnancy body is just freaking disgusting.  No wonder every girl I know, no matter how skinny, makes fat comments about herself.  Because if Heidi Klum has 20 pounds to lose when she looks like this while strutting in skimpy outfits in the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, the rest of us regular girls don’t stand a chance!  I find this even more offensive than Kate Moss’ controversial “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” because at least the media is blasting her for saying something so ridiculous and stupid, especially when she’s spent the better part of her modeling career looking like an emaciated waif.

Maybe I’m being too critical but things like this make me never want to have children in our ridiculous society.  Can you imagine having a daughter grow up in this world and not having self-esteem issues?  Or worse yet, having a son who will grow up to expect that if his girlfriend has Heidi Klum’s figure, she’s 20 pounds overweight.  Am I just overreacting?

It’s our turn this year!

We’ve spent the last few Thanksgivings cooking deliciously scrumptious meals together with friends…this year, we’re actually hosting it at our place!  I’m super excited as our tradition of spending it with our dear friends has really made Thanksgiving my favorite holiday.  The slightly daunting part of it is that Jeff and I are going to provide all the dishes this time, since K is flying in late afternoon and D can’t cook.  I’m confident enough in my cooking abilities that I can whip up enough decent tasting food for everyone but it’s still hard not to freak out.  I don’t want to keep the menu so simple that we end up with a stack of sandwiches.  I’m a bit of a perfectionist when cooking for people so I freak out when the food isn’t just right.  I don’t want to force my guests to eat subpar food!  We went to a barbecue at a friend’s house awhile ago and the first batch of chicken wings were pretty burnt…the hostess profusely apologized for that batch and then proceeded to put them on a plate and serve them to us.  No, she didn’t force feed me but she kept apologizing until everyone finally took one so we got the hint that she expected us to eat it.  To be honest, I was a little appalled, especially since there were another 2 batches of chicken wings waiting to be barbecued up, along with a whole bunch of other tasty, non-burnt foods.  I know she meant well but I never want to be that hostess that forces people to eat things that might make them sick, uncomfortable, or both.

I haven’t finalized the menu yet but here’s what I have so far:

- Roast chicken – None of us really enjoy turkey and but we all LOVE Zuni chicken!  Whenever we serve this to our dinner guests, we always get rave reviews.

- Corn – I’m thinking either creamed or on the cob.  Creamed is so delicious but so bad for you and just a tad more involved than throwing the cobs into the oven for a quick grill.  But it is Thanksgiving, so I do want to put a little more effort into cooking, even if it does clog up the arteries.

- Tomato basil salad – A slight variation on the tomato and garlic crouton salad that  gets a lot of hits through Google.  The crouton version is good but pretty unhealthy and inconvenient to put together so I’ve started leaving them out.  If the croutons sit too long, they get soggy and untasty – I hate serving foods that require precise timing for guests.  A few other adjustments I’ve made to the recipe – no more than 1-2 teaspoons of olive, and I prefer balsamic vinegar to red wine vinegar.  This is just an excuse to get something healthy and colorful into the Thanksgiving feast.

- Mashed potatoes – This one never comes out right but I’m hoping Jeff and I can nail it this year!

- Flan – This isn’t exactly a traditional Thanksgiving dessert but I love it!  Plus, it’s one of the few dessert recipes we’ve really mastered and we always whip it out during Thanksgiving.  Clearly, we’re not a traditional crowd of eaters.  We just aren’t into the richness and uber sweetness of traditional desserts.

I’m trying to think of what other dishes I can throw into the mix that won’t be too time intensive or high maintenance.  I have a feeling that I might be going to Trader Joe’s for some quick and easy appetizers.  I know, I’m such a cheater!  It’s not that any of the dishes we’re looking to make are really difficult, I just have  a hard time juggling too many complex recipes at a time, especially coupled with keeping the house clean, neat, and presentable for company.  Does anyone have any suggestions for tasty dishes (or Trader Joe ready-to-bake products…haha) that a novice cook and hostess like me can handle?  Clearly, I am no Martha Stewart.

Hotpot success

The hotpot dinner was a hit!  Here’s a sneak peek of the food right before the festivities began:

I love how this shot makes the apartment look more spacious.  Good camera, I guess.

Don’t despair – there was much more food consumed than that which is displayed in the pictures.  Everyone was stuffed to the gills by the end of the night!  I just wish we’d taken pictures of the dessert.  S brought red velvet cupcakes, which were amazingly delish!

If only our apartment was bigger (and we had more bowls, plates, and utensils), I wish we could have invited more people.  The hard part about being back in school is that there are silly cliques and groups that form, and having to limit the number of people you can invite over for dinner only perpetuates that.  On the other hand, you can’t reasonably have 60-70 people over for dinner, especially when you’re in an 800 square foot apartment eating food out of a communal hotpot.  A lot of people have been “jokingly” approaching me to ask about the party I threw that I didn’t invite them to…it’s starting to wear thin and I’m not sure who is really joking anymore and how to respond.  It’s not like any of these people have invited me over to their place for dinner!  Should I just give up on the idea of having people over for dinners?  This is when I miss my non-student life in the Bay Area (recently termed the Yay Area by B…I love it!), where dinner parties were a norm and I didn’t have to worry about 70 people’s feelings when trying to decide who to invite to our teeny tiny apartment.  Adults can be so childish…I guess the drama of high school never really goes away!  Do I just need to grow a thicker skin and shrug off their comments?  But I feel like that makes me sound so incredibly b*tchy, like I really just don’t give a damn that I excluded you from my party of super cool people.  Because that is totally not it at all!  xP

Hotpot party

I’m planning a hotpot party this weekend!  We used to hotpot all the time at home with our friends in NorCal but I guess that’s just too chill and laidback for Angelenos?  It seems like everyone here just wants to go out to clubs, bars, or expensive restaurants to hang out.  Well, we’re going against the grain and hosting a hotpot dinner at home!  For those who are unfamiliar with Chinese hotpot, it’s basically like the Chinese version of American fondue but much less posh.

I’m making a trip out to Ranch 99 and Mitsuwa this week for ingredients – I hope I don’t have to drive out to Arcadia to find everything I need!

Recovering from Vegas

After such an epic, fun, and crazy trip to Vegas, I needed the weekend to relax and recover.  Jeff and I hit up Tofu Ya, since a hot steaming pot of spicy tofu always hits the spot!

The panchan dishes were not great – to be honest, I was a little disappointed!  Where are the fishcakes, potatoes, or spicy jello? 

Luckily, the spicy tofu pot was excellent.  Look at it boil and bubble!

After lunch, we walked over to the Nijiya market.  We passed by Beard Papa’s, so I just had to check what the flavor of the day was.  I totally wasn’t planning on getting a cream puff until I found out that the flavor of the day was strawberry…my absolute FAVORITE!  So of course, I treated myself to a cream puff as part of my Vegas detox.  Look how beautiful this cream puff is, topped with its beautiful pink powdered sugar.

Despite the lackluster panchan, Tofu Ya is very promising.  Hurray for some good Asian food on the Westside for once!

A school field trip to Las Vegas part iii

After a delicious dinner at Nobu, we headed over to XS at the Encore.  We were afraid that the line would be really long so we headed over at 10:00.  Luckily, the line wasn’t bad at all!  All the retail stores right by the club had free passes for women so we were able to get in without cover.  Unfornately, the guys had to pay $30.  Since we were so early, the place wasn’t too crowded at all.  Plus, it’s so much nicer, larger, and more spacious than Tao so even when the dancefloor is packed, there are other places to dance without sweating buckets or even just lounge around and talk without the deafening music.  Even if I had to pay $30 cover, it is still so much more worth it to hang out at XS than at Tao!  Apparently, LeAnn Rimes and her new boytoy think so too since they were there on the same night that we were -  I didn’t see them but then again, I really don’t care about them.  Also, the wait staff was pretty good about letting us sit in the reserved sections when the guests hadn’t arrived yet.  When we had to move, they were very apologetic and even accomodating – they told us that we were welcome to sit in other reserved sections that were not yet occupied.  Score!  What a nice rest for my tired, achy feet on 3 inch heels.

(source)

The XS pool is really cool but unfortunately it was the cause of a lot of trouble for us!  At one point, two of our friends M & M were pushed into the pool and got kicked out of the club soaking wet without any of their stuff.  The bouncers refused to let them back in to get their stuff and said that they could come back the next day, even though the guy that pushed them in eventually got let back in!  When they actually went back the next day to get their stuff, the people were ridiculously obnoxious and unhelpful.  It took forever to find the lost and found and when they finally did, their phones and cameras were missing!  Of course, the club refused to take any sort of responsibility for this whole mess.  M took all the pictures for our trip too (and this was her first trip to Vegas ever!) so she is super pissed that she lost her camera, along with an iphone that she’ll have to spend $400 to replace.  What a horrible way to end our trip!  We were all having so much fun up until the pool incident.  XS is a great club but it’s very disappointing that they can be so unreasonable and awful.

I saw the pool incident from far away but missed most of the hubbub because I was taking care of two other drunk friends.  A group of us made our way over to Noodle Asia in the Venetian for some post-clubbing grub.  I love Noodle Asia – they are pricey but reasonable considering that they’re in the Venetian and they serve food until 3AM.  Plus, they are surprisingly authentic – no Panda Express food here!  The beef noodle soup and the stir fried rice cakes are excellent.  Again, I dropped the ball on this one because I forgot to take a picture. 

It was almost 4AM by the time we made it to bacl to the Palazzo.  Unfortunately, that meant only 2 hours of sleep for me because I had an 8AM flight to catch.  I actually managed to get up ontime and get myself into a cab to the airport.  The cab driver asked me if I wanted to go the fast way or the long way.  Silly driver…if I had the extra time to dawdle and cruise around the strip, don’t you think I would have used that extra time to sleep instead?  It’s a good thing I’ve had the rest of the weekend to catch up on the sleep I missed.  It was worth it though – even though this is my sixth time to Vegas, it was a ton of fun.  Business school students definitely know how to party hard!